This document summarizes research on how beliefs about fairness affect attitudes toward inequality and demands for redistribution. It finds that people are more opposed to inequality and support more redistribution when they believe inequality is due to luck rather than individual effort. Support for redistribution also depends on target-specific beliefs about the traits of taxpayers and recipients. For example, union members support taxes on the rich more than transfers to the poor, while those with college degrees show the opposite pattern. Overall, attitudes are conditional on beliefs about both the causes of inequality and the perceived worthiness of different social groups.

1. Fairness and Demands for
Redistribution
Christina Fong
Department of Social and Decision Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University

2. Introduction
• Redistributive preferences and behaviors are affected by beliefs about
• Justice in general (e.g., opportunity and meritocracy in the economy)
• Moral worthiness about specific social categories of recipients and taxpayers.
• Overview how these beliefs have been conceptualized in the past.
• Introduce newer focus: target-specific beliefs
• Highlights from empirical research
• Comments on the policy relevance of this research.

3. Perceived Fairness -> Attitudes to Inequality
• Fairness matters.
• People are more opposed to inequality and demand more redistribution
when they believe that inequality reflects luck or circumstances rather than
effort of factors under individual control.
• People are more accepting of inequality when they believe it reflects
opportunity and meritocracy.
• Pecuniary self-interest matters too. Just not as much as economists
expected.

4. Social Preferences, Self-Interest and the
Demand for Redistribution (Fong 2001)
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EstimatedProbabilitiy
Support for Redistribution
Figure 1.
Estimated Probabilities for Four Categories of People
Full Sample (N = 2738)
Believes in Luck
Believes in Effort
Low Socio-Econ
Status
High Socio-Econ
Status

5. Relevant Literatures
• The empirical regularity of beliefs in meritocracy being associated
with demands for redistribution reflects a common theme across the
disciplines:
• Accounts of Protestant work ethic going back to Martin Luther (history)
• Equity as a principle of justice (sociology, psychology)
• Reciprocity, especially “Strong Reciprocity” (anthropology, economics)
• Formal models of how beliefs about causes of income mobility and
meritocracy affect demands for redistribution (economics)

6. General Attitudes to Inequality and Beliefs about
Merit
• Measures of general attitudes to inequality and redistribution
• “Inequality is a problem that needs to be fixed.”
• “The government should tax the rich to help the poor.”
• Measures of general beliefs that incomes are under volitional control
• “The United States is a land of opportunity. Anyone who works hard enough
can get ahead in life.”
• “The economy is a meritocracy.”
• “What does it take to get ahead in life?” “Effort, luck or circumstances beyond
control, or both?”

7. Target-Specific Attitudes about Inequality
• Attitudinal measures from U.S. Gallup data:
• “People feel differently about how far a government should go. Here is a
phrase which some people believe in and some don’t. Do you think our
government should or should not redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on
the rich?
• “Some people feel that the government in Washington, DC should make
every possible effort to improve the social and economic position of the
poor. Others feel that the government should not make any special effort
to help the poor, because they should help themselves. How do you feel
about this?”
• Attitudinal measures from German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)
• “Taxes on those with high incomes in Germany should be increased.”
• “Financial help to those with low incomes in Germany should be
increased.”

8. Data from Experiments
• Gifts of real money to real-life poor people in economic experiments.
• Experimentally manipulated information about the recipients in
dictator games
• Charity (worthy) versus anonymous student (Eckel and Grossman)
• Race (Fong and Luttmer)
• Prior work history (Fong)
• Substance abuse (Fong and Oberholzer-Gee)

9. Who Holds Target-Specific Beliefs?
• In 1998 Gallup data, over 40% of respondents do NOT have general
beliefs. Similar results in 2014 German SOEP data.
• In the U.S., men, fulltime workers, people without college degrees,
those in the second-to-bottom income class, and younger people
blame the poor more than they credit the rich.

10. Examples of Target-Specific Demands for
Redistribution
• Relative to non-union members, union members show stronger
support for taxes on the rich than transfers to the poor.
• From a fiscal point of view, consistent with support for redistribution to their
own class, the middle class.
• In contrast, people with college degrees show less support for taxes
on the rich and more support for transfers to the poor
• From a fiscal point of view, consistent with support for redistribution AWAY
from the middle class.

11. Beliefs about the Poor in America: Qualitative
Evidence

12. Empirical Effects of Target-Specific Beliefs
Depvar = GOVPOOR Depvar = TAXRICH
WHYPOOR STRONGER (significant) WEAKER
WHYRICH WEAKER STRONGER (significant)
• Target-specific effects are significantly larger than non-target
specific effects both:
• (i) Across equations (within rows)
• (ii) Within equations (within columns)

13. Conclusion
• Support for redistribution is highly conditional on beliefs about traits
of taxpayers and transfer recipients.
• Rather than supporting more redistribution overall, there are groups
of people who may support some redistributive policies but not
others.
• Union members more likely to support taxes on the rich they are to support
transfers to the poor -> redistribution toward middle class
• College educated show less support for taxing the rich and more support for
transfers to the poor - > redistribution away from middle class